“Many of the world’s leading authorities on the conservation of wild species and wild places found not only an eager forum for the knowledge they brought, but also saw their understanding of the efforts by colleagues in other nations expand tremendously,” said Eugene Lapointe, president of IWMC and former Secretary General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).  “This was particularly true regard to the impressive efforts by the government of China to protect the thousands of plant and animal species within its borders.” 

After reviewing a presentation on the plight of the sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, IWMC issued a call for biologists and other management specialists from the nation’s surrounding the Caspian to gather to seek viable solutions to the problem of critically dwindling sturgeon resources. 

Throughout the week, delegates heard presentations that included the videotaped announcement by U.S. Congressman Richard Pombo on the formation of a new union of public policymakers worldwide, entitled the Sustainable Use Parliamentarians Organization (SUPO), to address the need for sound, sustainable resource management regimes.  Rep. Pombo pledged the group’s support for spreading the importance of sustainable use management techniques at national and international forums such as CITES’ 11th meeting of the parties scheduled for Kenya in April, 2000. 

Among the morning to night sessions, delegates not only heard presentations of national efforts aimed at reconciling relationships between cultures and terrestrial and aquatic species, they also saw the negative impact of campaigns and laws based on misleading and erroneous information surrounding the status of species such as the Hawksbill and Green ridley sea turtles and a variety of marine mammals from polar bears and seals to a number of species of cetaceans.  The United States’ Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and its negative affect on Arctic cultures and the ability of range nations to manage their indigenous species was a case in point. 

Representatives from the Peoples Republic of China spoke of conservation efforts on behalf of bears, tigers, musk deer as well as on reforestation and traditional Chinese medicine.  Their information contradicted many long-held and erroneous perceptions held in the other parts of the world regarding Chinese resource management. 

“We must not base our management policies on ignorance and fear,” said Lapointe at the symposium's close, “rather we must use the lack of information as a challenge to gather more research, to increase communication and cooperation among nations if we are to truly and effectively conserve and protect the world’s precious resources.”�